Matarajio

People in the village thought that Ibrahim was an odd man. He was single and didn’t have a wife or a family. From the corrugated-roof lean-to that Ibrahim called a shop, Ibrahim fixed shoes and radios and sold newspapers and cigarettes. There was barely enough room for him inside, so most of the time he spent standing in the small opening, waiting on customers and talking to people as they walked by. He always carried a newspaper under his arm when he wasn’t at work, even though he couldn’t read.

People said, “Ajabu,” when asked about him. “Anaimba mwenyewe!” Ibrahim had an air of friendliness, but no one knew anything about him. He was likely to interview a person and ask pointed questions in a conversation. He was at once disarming and endearing. Ibrahim understood one fundamental truth—people love talking about themselves.

The shoe repair stand was an inheritance Ibrahim received from his uncle. David was adored by many of his customers, mostly women, who always found an excuse to bring shoes to him. Some suspect that he crossed someone. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the season of endless rain.

When his uncle failed to show up and open the stand for ten consecutive days, Ibrahim was sent for. It was never clear to Ibrahim whether the concern was for his uncle’s well-being or for the shoes locked away behind the heavy padlock. He had learned the trade from his uncle when he stayed with him as a child. He would accompany him to the stand, and, in time, he learned how to repair shoes. This was before Ibrahim traveled down the mountain to the missionaries in Arusha, Tanzania.

When he returned home, everyone in the village assumed that Ibrahim’s studies were interrupted by his uncle’s departure. This assumption was convenient because it inflated Ibrahim’s posture as an educated man. “Alikuwa na akili sana,” Mzeh Ali was fond of saying, “he could have been a doctor if his uncle hadn’t disappeared!”

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Ibrahim noticed that the Matatu was already 15 minutes behind schedule. He rubbed his hands and cupped them to blow his breath in between. The faint smell of coal and wood was burning in the distance. He looked across the small group of people who’d already begun gathering at 6 a.m. The array of colored kanga wraps worn by the women was a stark contrast to the men’s nondescript gray and brown coats. They stood and huddled on the damp red earth beside his shoe stand in front of the old butcher store. No one could remember when or why Mzeh Ali stopped selling meat from the butcher store. Because of its location on the main road, the shop was still used as a terminus to offload passengers from the foot of the mountain up to the village.

A woman shifted her weight in her worn, gray canvas sneakers and rubbed her slender hands together to keep warm. Despite her 50 years, her hands were still elegant, with long, brown fingers—one might mistake them for those of a teacher. Yet closer inspection revealed the broken skin, chipped nails, and rough callouses—hands accustomed to working hard.

Ibrahim heard the chirping of crickets and frogs from the river beyond the field to the left of where they waited. The rhythmic sound cast a serene mood and camouflaged the distant whine of a diesel engine laboring to carry an overloaded vehicle up the mountain. The Matatu doorman’s call sounded faint—almost a murmur—but grew louder as the van approached. The fast staccato of his voice, urging passengers to ride in his van, echoed above the din of wildlife. As it appeared over the horizon, the Matatu looked like something out of a comic book. The driver expertly guided the bobbing, lumbering vehicle around the maze of potholes on the worn dirt road. It shook and swayed as the overloaded cargo on the roof threatened to topple the odd apparition on its side. On what was once a plain, white Isuzu diesel van, there were brightly colored words and drawings. “In God We Trust” was written on the side right under “Ball 4 Real.”

Behind the shivering woman in the gray sneakers, people formed a queue, standing in the order in which they had arrived at the butcher shop. When the vehicle arrived, they braced themselves for the indignity of squeezing into it.